The National Institutes of Health, Center for Advancing Innovation and the Heritage Provider Network have set up a business plan and biotech start-up “challenge” for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows with bright ideas to commercialize neuro-related inventions. Similar to last year’s Breast Cancer Challenge, the inventions are derived from the NIH intramural portfolio.

The Challenge will feature 16 brain related inventions (including various neurological diseases and cancer) that have commercial viability and are important to public health, with the primary goal being to stimulate the creation of start-up businesses based upon these inventions. Letters of Intent will be accepted until November 30, 2014.

This is a fantastic opportunity for graduate students, post-docs, entrepreneurs and others interested in making an impact on brain health to join the challenge, learn the business of science, be an entrepreneur and have the opportunity to raise seed funding.

More information about this challenge can be found at this link or by contacting Rosemarie Truman at rt@ thecenterforadvancinginnovation.org, 202-438-2208. The Neuro Start-up Challenge is also on Facebook at this link.

Save the date for Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology’s annual symposium “Neuro-X,” May 1, 2015 in the Owens Auditorium at the Johns Hopkins medical campus. More details can be found at our Facebook event page.

For all press inquiries regarding INBT, its faculty and programs, contact Mary Spiro, mspiro@jhu.edu or 410-516-4802.

Johns Hopkins University’s “Brain Night” is a monthly event sponsored by the Brain Science Institute and includes supper and a scientific program aimed at bringing together students and senior investigators. Faculty, students and staff interested in the brain sciences are invited to attend. The program is designed to promote interactions between faculty and students across the University and to increase links between basic and clinical neuroscience researchers.

Huganir is affiliated with The Johns Hopkins Blood-Brain Barrier working group launched by Peter Searson, director of Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology. Huganir is also Professor and Director of the Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience, as well as an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

The scene was a sea of white tents spread across the National Mall in Washington, DC and science and engineering were the order of the day. That’s what greeted visitors to the booth hosted by Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology at the first USA Science & Engineering Festival Expo, held October 23-24.

An estimated 500,000 people attended the two-day event, which featured 550 participating organizations and 1,500 hands-on activities. Those who stopped by INBT’s “Nano-Magic” booth learned about how atoms, molecules and materials have ways of building structures all by themselves.

Twelve graduate students affiliated with INBT training programs and a handful of friends of the Institute volunteered to help visitors understand the science. In addition, several of the research and news videos created by INBT’s Animation Studio were on display throughout the day.

An estimated 500 to 600 people came to the INBT booth and spent from 5 to 20 minutes discussing nanotechnology, Johns Hopkins research, and INBT’s training programs. This first-ever event was a major outreach opportunity for INBT and one of the first times the Institute has had a public display of this kind.

“Outreach serves an important purpose,” said Denis Wirtz, INBT’s associate director and professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering who came out Saturday to assist with the demonstration. “It showcases the interdisciplinary nature of INBT’s work to a broad audience. But it also gives the students an opportunity to explain their research in an accessible way. These outreach activities are a requirement of their training program grants, but this skill will also help them in their future careers when explaining their work to funding sources.”

USA Science and Engineering Festival organizers have not announced whether or not they will host another event like this one next year. INBT leaders indicate, however, that they will be interested in participating in this or similar events in the future.

Blue and black, or white and gold? That is the question, apparently. Yes, we are still talking about The Dress, if you can believe it (even though we are secretly convinced that the white/gold camp is just having a laugh at our expense—it's clearly blue and black). To (ahem) shed some light on this great […]